1875 English cricket season

1875 was the 89th season of cricket in England since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). Nottinghamshire regained its place as the unofficial "Champion County". It was in many ways the last season before pitches began to improve and produce much heavier scoring: it was definitely the last season where "dead shooters" were frequently seen at Lord's[1] before the heavy roller made for regular bounce there.

a An unofficial seasonal title sometimes proclaimed by consensus of media and historians prior to December 1889 when the official County Championship was constituted. Although there are ante-dated claims prior to 1873, when residence qualifications were introduced, it is only since that ruling that any quasi-official status can be ascribed.

1.
Cricket
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Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a cricket field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard-long pitch with a wicket at each end. One team bats, attempting to score as many runs as possible, each phase of play is called an innings. After either ten batsmen have been dismissed or a number of overs have been completed, the innings ends. The winning team is the one that scores the most runs, including any extras gained, at the start of each game, two batsmen and eleven fielders enter the field of play. The striker takes guard on a crease drawn on the four feet in front of the wicket. His role is to prevent the ball hitting the stumps by use of his bat. The other batsman, known as the non-striker, waits at the end of the pitch near the bowler. A dismissed batsman must leave the field, and a teammate replaces him, the bowlers objectives are to prevent the scoring of runs and to dismiss the batsman. An over is a set of six deliveries bowled by the same bowler, the next over is bowled from the other end of the pitch by a different bowler. If a fielder retrieves the ball enough to put down the wicket with a batsman not having reached the crease at that end of the pitch. Adjudication is performed on the field by two umpires, the laws of cricket are maintained by the International Cricket Council and the Marylebone Cricket Club. Traditionally cricketers play in all-white kit, but in limited overs cricket they wear club or team colours. In addition to the kit, some players wear protective gear to prevent injury caused by the ball. Although crickets origins are uncertain, it is first recorded in south-east England in the 16th century and it spread globally with the expansion of the British Empire, leading to the first international matches in the mid-19th century. ICC, the governing body, has over 100 members. The sport is followed primarily in Australasia, Britain, the Indian subcontinent, southern Africa, womens cricket, which is organised and played separately, has also achieved international standard. A number of words have been suggested as sources for the term cricket, in the earliest definite reference to the sport in 1598 it is called creckett. One possible source for the name is the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff, in Samuel Johnsons Dictionary, he derived cricket from cryce, Saxon, a stick

2.
Lord's
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Lords, also known as Lords Cricket Ground, is a cricket venue in St Johns Wood, London. Lords is widely referred to as the Home of Cricket and is home to the worlds oldest sporting museum, Lords today is not on its original site, being the third of three grounds that Lord established between 1787 and 1814. His first ground, now referred to as Lords Old Ground, was where Dorset Square now stands and his second ground, Lords Middle Ground, was used from 1811 to 1813 before being abandoned to make way for the construction through its outfield of the Regents Canal. The present Lords ground is about 250 yards north-west of the site of the Middle Ground, the ground can hold 28,000 spectators. Proposals are being developed to increase capacity and amenity, as of December 2013, it was proposed to redevelop the ground at a cost of around £200 million over a 14-year period. The current ground celebrated its two hundredth anniversary in 2014, to mark the occasion, on 5 July an MCC XI captained by Sachin Tendulkar played a Rest of the World XI led by Shane Warne in a 50 overs match. The White Conduit moved there from Islington soon afterwards and reconstituted themselves as Marylebone Cricket Club, in 1811, feeling obliged to relocate because of a rise in rent, Lord removed his turf and relaid it at his second ground. This was short-lived because it lay on the route decided by Parliament for the Regents Canal, the Middle Ground was on the estate of the Eyre family, who offered Lord another plot nearby, and he again relocated his turf. The new ground, on the present site, was opened in the 1814 season, the earliest known match was MCC v Hertfordshire on 22 June 1814. This is not rated a first-class match, MCC won by an innings and 27 runs. The annual Eton v Harrow match was first played on the Old Ground in 1805, there is no record of the fixture being played again until 29 July 1818, when it was held at the present Lords ground for the first time, Harrow won by 13 runs. From 1822, the fixture has been almost an annual event at Lords, in 1987 the new Mound Stand, designed by Michael Hopkins and Partners, was opened, followed by the Grandstand in 1996. Most notably, the Media Centre was added in 1998-9, it won The Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize for 1999, the ground can currently hold up to 28,000 spectators. The two ends of the pitch are the Pavilion End, where the members pavilion is located. The main survivor from the Victorian era is the Pavilion, with its famous Long Room and this historic landmark— a Grade II*-listed building— underwent an £8 million refurbishment programme in 2004–05. The pavilion is primarily for members of MCC, who may use its amenities, which include seats for viewing the cricket, the Long Room and its Bar, the Bowlers Bar, at Middlesex matches the Pavilion is open to members of the Middlesex County Club. The Pavilion also contains the rooms where players change, each of which has a small balcony for players to watch the play. The only cricketer to hit a ball over the pavilion was Albert Trott, another highly visible feature of the ground is Old Father Time, a weather vane in the shape of Father Time, currently adorning a stand on the south-east side of the field

3.
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club
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Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the county of Gloucestershire. There is uncertainty about the date of the clubs foundation, due to a merger with another club. The club played its first senior match in June of that year and it was founded by the Grace family and W. G. was its first team captain. With that association, Gloucestershire has had senior status since inception, the club plays its home games at its headquarters, the Bristol County Ground, in the Bishopston area of north Bristol. Each season a number of games are played at the Cheltenham cricket festival held at the College Ground. In recent years, matches have also played at the Gloucester cricket festival at The Kings School. Gloucestershire CCC is best known as the county of W. G. Grace, whose father founded the club, and Wally Hammond, the clubs traditional badge is the coat of arms of the City of Bristol, the clubs home since being founded in 1870. It is known that the sport of Stow-Ball aka Stob-Ball was played in the county during the 16th century. In this game, the bat was called a stave, see Alice B Gomme, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland. A game in Gloucester on 22 September 1729 is the earliest definite reference to cricket in the county, from then until the founding of the county club, very little has been found outside parish cricket. Dr Graces club played Gloucestershires initial first-class match versus Surrey at Durdham Down in Bristol on 2,3 &4 June 1870, Gloucestershire joined the County Championship at this time but the existence of the Cheltenham club seems to have forestalled the installation of its constitutional trappings. The Cheltenham club was wound up in March 1871 and its chief officials accepted positions in the hierarchy of Gloucestershire. So, although the details and dates of the county clubs foundation are uncertain, it has always been assumed that the year was 1870. What is certain is that Dr Grace was able to form the county club because of its playing strength, especially his three sons WG, EM and Fred. The early history of Gloucestershire is dominated by the Grace family, most notably W G Grace and his brother E M Grace, although still an active player, was the original club secretary. With the Grace brothers and Billy Midwinter in their team, Gloucestershire won three Champion County titles in the 1870s, since then Gloucestershires fortunes have been mixed and they have never won the official County Championship. They struggled in the years of the County Championship because their best batsmen, apart from Gilbert Jessop

4.
Hampshire County Cricket Club
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Hampshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the county of Hampshire. Hampshire teams formed by earlier organisations, principally the Hambledon Club, always had important match status, because of poor performances for several seasons, Hampshire then lost its status for nine seasons until it was invited into the County Championship in 1895. The club was founded in 1863 and played at the Antelope Ground and they relocated to the County Ground, Southampton until 2000, before moving to the purpose-built Rose Bowl in West End, which is in the Borough of Eastleigh. Hampshire played its first important match in 1864, losing to Sussex at the Antelope Ground, Hampshire had poor results for many seasons and lost its important match status in 1885. They achieved official first-class status in 1895 when they were invited to join the County Championship, the club has twice won the County Championship, in the 1961 and 1973 seasons. It has twice won the Benson & Hedges Cup, in 1988 and 1991, the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy once in 2005, having first played Twenty20 cricket in 2003, Hampshire won the Friends Provident t20 in 2010. The County Championship was restructured in 2000, and at the end of the 2002 Hampshire was relegated for the first time, the club remained in the second division for three seasons and since 2004 had competed in the top tier. However, the club was relegated once more in 2011, the club won both the Friends Life t20 and ECB40 in 2012, but it wasnt until 2014 before they were promoted to the first division again. They narrowly avoided relegation in 2015 before being relegated again in 2016, phil Mead is the clubs leading run-scorer with 48,892 runs in 700 matches for Hampshire between 1905 and 1936. Fast bowler Derek Shackleton took 2,669 wickets in 583 first-class matches between 1948 and 1969 which remains a club record. Alec Kennedy, whose career lasted from 1907 to 1936, was the first player to score 10,000 runs, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie was both Hampshire last amateur captain and first professional captain. If authentic, this is the earliest known mention of cricket in Hampshire, but, with the sport having originated in Saxon or Norman times on the Weald, it must have reached Hampshire long before 1647. In 1680, lines written in an old Bible invite All you that do delight in Cricket, come to Marden, Marden is in Sussex, north of Chichester, and interestingly close to Hambledon, which is just across the county boundary in Hampshire. Hampshire is used in a name for the first time in August 1729. The origin of the legendary Hambledon Club is lost, Hambledon had presumably earned recognition as the best parish team in Hampshire, but no reports of their local matches have been found. We do not know when the Hambledon Club was founded and it likely that some kind of parish organisation was operating in 1756. The Sussex v Hampshire match in June 1766 is the earliest reference to Hampshire as a county team

5.
Kent County Cricket Club
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Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the county of Kent. The club was first founded in 1842 but teams representing the county have played cricket since the early 18th century. Kent have competed in the County Championship since the start of the competition in 1890 and have played in every top-level domestic cricket competition in England. The clubs limited overs team is called the Kent Spitfires after the Supermarine Spitfire, the club plays most of its home matches at the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury, which hosts Canterbury Cricket Week, the oldest cricket festival in England. It also plays home matches at the County Cricket Ground, Beckenham. Kent also field a team in the Womens County Championship. The team has won the Championship a record seven times, most recently in 2016, and it has traditionally played matches at the Polo Farm in Canterbury, but as of 2016 has moved to be based mainly at Beckenham. Kent, jointly with Sussex, is believed to be the birthplace of cricket and it is widely held that cricket was invented by children living on the Weald in Saxon or Norman times. The games earliest tentative reference, re creag in 1300, relates to Newenden in Kent, the first definite mention of cricket in Kent concerned a match at Chevening c.1611 between teams from the Weald and the Downs. This is the worlds earliest known organised match, Cricket became established in Kent during the 17th century and the earliest village matches took place before the English Civil War. It is believed that the earliest county teams were formed in the aftermath of the Restoration in 1660, in 1705, West of Kent played Chatham at Malling. The first recorded inter-county match took place in 1709 between Kent and Surrey, Kent had strong teams throughout the 18th century, often challenging All-England. The county had several famous patrons including Lord John Sackville, his son John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, in the latter half of the 18th century, Kent and Surrey were the only counties that could realistically challenge the power of Hambledon. In the 1822 MCC versus Kent match at Lord’s, John Willes of Kent opened the bowling and was no-balled for using a roundarm action, Willes promptly withdrew from the match and refused to play again in any important fixture. His action proved the catalyst for the so-called roundarm revolution, in 1837 Kent was unofficially proclaimed the champion county and had the most successful team through most of the 1840s. Mainstays of the Kent team in those years included Alfred Mynn, Fuller Pilch, Nicholas Wanostrocht aka Felix, Ned Wenman and William Hillyer. On 6 August 1842, the formation of the original Kent County Cricket Club took place in Canterbury when the Beverley Club was reconstituted as the Kent Cricket Club, the new Kent club played its initial first-class match against All-England at White Hart Field in Bromley on 25–27 August 1842

6.
Lancashire County Cricket Club
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Lancashire County Cricket Club, one of eighteen first-class county clubs in the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales, represents the historic county of Lancashire. The clubs limited overs team is called Lancashire Lightning, when the County Championship was officially founded in December 1889, Lancashire was one of eight clubs to feature in the competition’s first season in 1890. In 1895, Archie MacLaren scored 424 in an innings for Lancashire, Lancashire won their first two County Championship titles in 1897 and 1904. Between 1926 and 1934, Lancashire won the County Championship five times, in 1950, they shared the title with Surrey. Cyril Washbrook became Lancashire’s first professional captain in 1954, Lancashire next won the County Championship in 2011, a gap of 77 years. Johnny Briggs, whose career lasted from 1879 to 1900, was the first player to score 10,000 runs, Ernest Tyldesley, younger brother of Johnny Tyldesley, is the club’s leading run-scorer with 34,222 runs in 573 matches for Lancashire between 1909 and 1936. Fast bowler Brian Statham took a club record 1,816 wickets in 430 first-class matches between 1950 and 1968, Lancashire won the Benson and Hedges Cup in 1984, three times between 1990 and 1996, and the Sunday League in 1989,1998 and 1999. The County Championship was restructured in 2000 with Lancashire in the first division, since then they have been relegated three times, and each time were promoted the following season. On 23–25 July 1849, the Sheffield and Manchester clubs played each other at Hyde Park in Sheffield and it was the first match to involve a team using Lancashire as its name and is generally reckoned to have been the first Roses Match. Teams called Yorkshire, though based on the Sheffield club, had been active since 1833, the Roses Match is one of crickets oldest and most famous rivalries. In 1857, the Manchester club moved to Old Trafford, which has been the home of Lancashire cricket ever since, the club was committed to playing matches in different parts of the county to introduce. Cricket into every part of Lancashire, the early Lancashire side was reliant upon amateurs, which led to problems, although they were happy to play at Old Trafford, they were less willing to travel to away fixtures. During the early 1870s, the team was dominated by Monkey Hornby’s batting, the team’s standard of cricket improved with the arrival of two professional players, Dick Barlow and Alex Watson. The impact of Barlow and Hornby was such that their partnership was immortalised in the poem At Lord’s by Francis Thompson. The team was further enhanced by A. G. Steel – an amateur considered second only to W. G, as Lancashire’s consistency improved, so did their support, in 1878,28,000 over three days watched Lancashire play Gloucestershire. The club’s first success came in 1879, when the majority of the cricket press – except for Wisden – agreed that Lancashire and Nottinghamshire were joint champions, Lancashire was the champion county in 1881 and again shared the title with Nottinghamshire in 1882. Dick Barlow carried his bat for just 5 not out in Lancashire’s total of 69 in two and a half hours against Nottinghamshire on a treacherous, rain-affected Trent Bridge pitch in July 1882. Barlow and his opening partner Hornby are the opening batsmen immortalised in the famous poem by Francis Thompson

7.
Surrey County Cricket Club
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Surrey County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the county of Surrey. The clubs limited overs team is called Surrey, Surrey teams formed from 1709 by earlier organisations always had senior status and so the county club is rated accordingly from inception, i. e. Home of the club since its foundation in 1845 has been the Oval, the club also has an out ground at Woodbridge Road, Guildford, where some home games are played each season. Surrey CCC has had three periods of great success in its history. In 1955, Surrey won 23 of its 28 county matches, to date, Surrey has won the official County Championship 18 times outright, more than any other county with the exception of Yorkshire. The clubs traditional badge is the Prince of Waless feathers, in 1915, Lord Rosebery obtained permission to use this symbol from the Prince of Wales, hereditary owner of the land on which the Oval stands. It is widely believed that cricket was invented by children living on the Weald in Saxon or Norman times, although not the games birthplace, Surrey does claim the honour of being the location of its first definite mention in print. Evidence from a January 1597 court case confirms that creckett was played by schoolboys on a plot of land in Guildford around 1550. In 1611, King James I gave to his eldest son, Henry, Prince of Wales, the manors of Kennington and Vauxhall, to this day, the Prince of Waless feathers feature on the cricket clubs badge. Cricket became well established in Surrey during the 17th century and the earliest village matches took place before the English Civil War and it is believed that the earliest county teams were formed in the aftermath of the Restoration in 1660. The earliest known match in Surrey was Croydon v London at Croydon on 1 July 1707. In 1709, the earliest known inter-county match took place between Kent and Surrey at Dartford Brent with £50 at stake, Surrey would continue to play cricket against other representative teams from that time onwards. Probably its greatest players during the era were the famous bowler Lumpy Stevens and the wicket-keeper/batsman William Yalden. A further meeting at the Tavern on 18 October 1845 formally constituted the club, appointed officers, a lease on Kennington Oval, a former market garden, was obtained by a Mr Houghton from the Duchy of Cornwall. Mr Houghton was of the old Montpelier Cricket Club,70 members of which formed the nucleus of the new Surrey County club, the Honourable Fred Ponsonby, later the Earl of Bessborough was the first vice-president. Surreys inaugural first-class match was against the MCC at the Oval at the end of May,1846, the clubs first inter-county match, against Kent, was held at the Oval the following month and Surrey emerged victorious by ten wickets. However, the club did not do well that year, despite the extra public attractions at the Oval of a Walking Match, by the start of the 1847 season the club was £70 in debt and there was a motion to close

8.
Sussex County Cricket Club
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Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the county of Sussex. Its limited overs team is called the Sussex Sharks and these teams always had senior status and so the county club is rated accordingly from inception, i. e. Its home ground is the County Cricket Ground, Hove, Sussex also play matches around the county at Arundel, Eastbourne and Horsham. Sussex won its first ever official County Championship title in 2003 and subsequently became the dominant team of the decade, Sussex enjoyed further limited overs success with consecutive Pro40 wins in 2008 and 2009 as well as beating Somerset at Edgbaston to lift the 2009 Twenty20 Cup. The south coast county ended the decade having won ten trophies in ten years, on 1 November 2015, Sussex County Cricket Club merged with the Sussex Cricket Board to form a single governing body for cricket in Sussex, called Sussex Cricket Limited. It is believed that cricket was invented by children living on the Weald in Anglo-Saxon or Norman times and they were fined 12d each and made to do penance. Cricket became established in Sussex during the 17th century and the earliest village matches took place before the English Civil War and it is believed that the earliest county teams were formed in the aftermath of the Restoration in 1660. Matches involving the two great Sussex patrons Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond and Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet were first recorded in 1725, the earliest known use of Sussex in a match title occurred in 1729. From 1741, Richmond patronised the famous Slindon Cricket Club, whose team was representative of the county, after the death of Richmond in 1751, Sussex cricket declined until the emergence of the Brighton club at its Prince of Wales Ground in 1790. This led directly to the formation on 1 March 1839 of Sussex County Cricket Club, Sussex CCC played its initial first-class match versus Marylebone Cricket Club at Lords on 10 &11 June 1839. The Sussex crest depicts a mythological, footless bird called the Martlet, in total, Sussex CCC have played at 17 grounds,4 of which have been in Brighton and Hove. The first County match was played at Eaton Road on 6 June 1872 against Gloucestershire, currently, the main venue for the Clubs First and Second XI is The County Ground in Hove, although matches are also played regularly at the grounds at Arundel and Horsham. Other grounds for first class matches have included Sheffield Park, Chichester, Worthing, Eastbourne, denotes the players squad number, as worn on the back of their shirt. * denotes a player who has awarded a county cap. Director of Cricket, Keith Greenfield Head coach, Mark Davis Academy Director, Carl Hopkinson Asst

9.
Yorkshire County Cricket Club
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Yorkshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the county of Yorkshire. The clubs limited overs team is called the Yorkshire Vikings, the teams most recent Championship title was in 2015, following on from that achieved in 2014. The clubs limited-overs kit colours are purple, black and yellow with Mazars as the main sponsor, Yorkshire play most of their home games at Headingley Stadium in Leeds. Another significant venue is at North Marine Road Ground, Scarborough, Sheffield Cricket Club was probably formed about this time and there are references to Sheffield matches in Derbyshire in 1757 and at Leeds in 1761. A club was formed in York in 1784, bedale in North Yorkshire was a noted centre in the early 19th century. But cricket in most rural areas was slow to develop, Yorkshire cricket became centred around Sheffield, where it was more organised than in the rest of the county. From 1771, Sheffield played semi-regular matches against Nottingham Cricket Club, Nottingham was generally the better side and Sheffield sometimes played with more players to give them a greater chance of victory. Nevertheless, the Sheffield player Tom Marsden was regarded as one of the players in the country in the 1820s. Cricket increased in popularity after a match was played at the purpose-built Darnall New Ground in Sheffield to evaluate the new style of roundarm bowling. After this match, many new clubs were formed in the county. In 1833, Yorkshire was first used as a name, although it contained 11 Sheffield players. The name may have arisen from a need to match the status of Norfolk as a county rather than a city, there were some differences in the organisation of the Yorkshire team vis-à-vis those called Sheffield as it included three amateurs while Sheffield teams were entirely professional. Yorkshire, as such, played intermittently over the thirty years but was not organised in any formal way. Some of their opponents were Sussex in 1835, Manchester in 1844 and 1845, also in 1849, Yorkshire played against a Lancashire team for the first time, though it was really a Sheffield v Manchester match. By 1855, Sheffield and Yorkshire were playing at Bramall Lane, on 7 March 1861, during a meeting at the Adelphi Hotel in Sheffield, a Match Fund Committee was established to run Yorkshire county matches. The committee was made up from the management committee of the Bramall Lane ground, but the committee was unable to persuade other clubs that it was not seeking to promote Sheffield cricket and a lack of funds prevented some matches being played in 1862. By this time, there were several cricketers with good reputations, consequently, on 8 January 1863, Yorkshire County Cricket Club was formed

10.
George Harris, 4th Baron Harris
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Colonel George Robert Canning Harris, 4th Baron Harris, GCSI, GCIE, CB, TD, ADC, generally known as Lord Harris, was a British colonial administrator. He was also an English amateur cricketer, mainly active from 1870 to 1889 and he had a political career from 1885 to 1900 and was for much of his life a highly influential figure in cricket administration through the offices he held with Marylebone Cricket Club. He appeared in 224 first-class matches, including four Test matches and he scored 9,990 runs in first-class cricket with a highest score of 176 among eleven centuries and held 190 catches. He took 75 wickets with a best analysis of five for 57, Harris was born in St Anns, Trinidad, and died in Throwley, Kent. Initially called The Honourable George Harris, he was the son of George Harris and he was educated at Eton College, where he was captain of the cricket team in 1870, and then went up to Christ Church, Oxford. He had made his first-class debut for Kent in August 1870, in 1871, Harris captained Kent for the first time, in succession to South Norton, and led the team when available until 1889. He inherited the Harris barony following the death of his father on 23 November 1872 and this team included W. G. Grace with whom Harris formed a close friendship. After he left Oxford, Harris became actively involved in administration when elected Kents club president for 1875. He was the secretary from 1875 to 1880 and retained long-term committee membership. Harris played in four Tests between January 1879 and August 1884, all as captain and he led the English cricket team in Australia and New Zealand in 1878–79 and was a central figure in the events of 8 February 1879 when a crowd riot erupted at a match in Sydney. From 1885 to 1900, Harris had a career in politics, on his return from India, Harris was elected president of MCC for 1895. He was closely associated with Lord Hawke, whom many considered to be Harris disciple, Harris had very strong principles based on a profound respect for the Laws of cricket which he defended utterly. He was especially keen to impose rules about illegal bowling actions and, in county cricket, Harris was a controversial figure, revered by crickets MCC-based establishment and heavily criticised elsewhere. The Honourable George Harris was born in St Anns, Trinidad on 3 February 1851 when his father, George Harris, Harris barely knew his mother who died when he was two years old. In 1854, the moved to Madras when his father was posted to the governorship there. Harris senior retired in March 1859 and returned to England where he involved with Kent County Cricket Club as a committee member and, in 1870. He died in November 1872, whereupon Harris junior succeeded to the barony as 4th Baron Harris and he was already a first-class cricketer by then and was henceforward universally known in the sport as Lord Harris. In 1864, at the age of 13, Harris was sent to Eton College to further his education and his first important cricket match was the 1868 Eton versus Harrow fixture at Lords, when he was seventeen, he scored 23 and 6

11.
History of cricket to 1725
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The earliest definite reference to cricket is dated Monday,17 January 1597. Derricks testimony makes clear that the sport was being played c.1550, All that can be said with a fair degree of certainty is that its beginning was earlier than 1550, somewhere in south-east England within the counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey. Therefore, forest clearings and land where sheep had grazed would have been suitable places to play, the sparse information available about the early years suggests that it may have been a childrens game in the 16th century but, by 1611, it had become an adult pastime. The earliest known organised match was played c.1611, a year in other significant references to the sport are dated. From 1611 to 1725, less than thirty matches are known to have been organised between recognised teams, similarly, only a limited number of players, teams and venues of the period have been recorded. The earliest matches played by English parish teams are examples of village cricket, although village matches are now considered minor in status, the early matches are significant in crickets history simply because they are known. There were no reports of matches until the end of the seventeenth century and so the primary sources are court records and private diaries. During the reign of Charles I, the took a increased interest as patrons. Its patrons staged lucrative eleven-a-side matches featuring the earliest professional players, meanwhile, English colonists had introduced cricket to North America and the West Indies, and the sailors and traders of the East India Company had taken it to the Indian subcontinent. In the first quarter of the 18th century, more information about cricket became available as the newspaper industry took an interest. The sport noticeably began to spread throughout England as the century went on, by 1725, significant patrons such as Edwin Stead, Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond and Sir William Gage were forming teams of county strength in Kent and Sussex. The earliest known great players, including William Bedle and Thomas Waymark, were active, Cricket was attracting large, vociferous crowds and the matches were social occasions at which gambling and alcoholic drinks were additional attractions. As early as c.1611, a match was recorded at Chevening in Kent between teams representing the Downs and the Weald. A number of words in use at the time are thought to be possible sources for the name cricket. In the earliest known reference to the sport in 1598, it is called creckett, in what may be an early reference to the sport, a 1533 poem attributed to John Skelton describes Flemish weavers as kings of crekettes, a word of apparent Middle Dutch origin. In Samuel Johnsons Dictionary of the English Language, he derived cricket from cryce, Saxon, in Old French, the word criquet seems to have meant a kind of club or stick, though this may have been the origin of croquet. Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church, according to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of the University of Bonn, cricket derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de sen. Gillmeister believes the sport itself had a Flemish origin but the jury is out on the matter

12.
Glossary of cricket terms
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This is a general glossary of the terminology used in the sport of cricket. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, certain aspects of cricket terminology are explained in more detail in cricket statistics and the naming of fielding positions is explained at fielding. Cricket is known for its rich terminology, some terms are often thought to be arcane and humorous by those not familiar with the game. Across the line A batsman plays across the line when he moves his bat in a lateral to the direction of the incoming ball. Agricultural shot this is a swing across the line of the ball played without much technique, often one that results in a chunk of the pitch being dug up by the bat, or that winds up with the ball going to Cow Corner. Air when a ball, or series of balls, are delivered by a bowler with a more looping trajectory than usual. In combination with top spin, the objective is to lure the batsman into misreading the length of the ball, in combination with off spin or leg spin, the objective is to give the ball more time to drift. All out when an innings is ended due to ten of the batsmen on the batting side being either dismissed or unable to bat because of injury or illness. All-rounder a player adept at both batting and bowling, anchor a top-order batsman capable of batting for a long duration throughout the innings. Usually batsmen playing at numbers 3 or 4 play such a role, an anchor plays defensively, and is often the top scorer in the innings. Angler a type of late-swing delivery used by Bart King in the early 1900s and it is unclear whether angler also referred to his outswinger. Appeal the act of a bowler or fielder shouting at the umpire to ask if his last ball took the batsmans wicket, usually phrased in the form of howzat. Common variations include Howzee. or simply turning to the umpire, the umpire cannot give a batsman out unless the fielding side appeals, even if the criteria for a dismissal have otherwise been met. However, batsmen who are obviously out will normally leave the field without waiting for an appeal, approach The motion of the bowler prior to bowling the ball. It is also known as the run-up, Also the ground a bowler runs on during his run up. Play was delayed because the approaches were slippery. Arm ball a delivery bowled by an off spin bowler that is not spun, so, unlike the off break. A particularly good bowlers arm ball might also swing away from the batsman in the air, around the wicket or round the wicket a right-handed bowler passing to the right of the non-strikers stumps in his run-up, and vice versa for a left-handed bowler